Welcome to the Diocese of the Holy Spirit web site.
Our Diocese is a non-geographic, transitional diocese. We offer a home within the Anglican Church in North America for churches—particularly those that have been under the Church of Uganda—located where a regional diocese has not yet been organized.
Our mission is to equip our member congregations to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, plant new congregations, and uphold the historic Anglican faith under the authority of Holy Scripture. We subscribe to the Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church in North America.
We encourage and support the participation of our congregations in the formation of regional dioceses, and we expect that our congregations will transfer to those regional dioceses as soon as it is feasible to do so. We therefore anticipate that the membership in the Diocese of the Holy Spirit will decrease significantly over the next year or two.
Our organizational Synod met in March 2009 in Atlanta, GA, and adopted Articles of Incorporation. As we prayed about the name of our Diocese, the Lord led us to two Bible passages:
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8:26-27)
We believe the Lord was emphasizing to us that while we do not know what our future will hold as a Diocese or as individual congregations, and we do not know how long the Diocese of the Holy Spirit will be needed, we must be guided by the Holy Spirit in all that we do.
To God be the glory!
Faithfully yours in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. John A. M. Guernsey